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Blue Velvet
Blue Velvet
Rating: R
Version: Special Edition
Release Date: June 4, 2002
Running Time: approximately 121 minutes
Ten-second Rundown: Innocent teens stumble into the dark underbelly of small-town life…in spades…
Extras:
Mysteries of Love documentary Deleted Scenes Montage Original "Siskel & Ebert" review Photo Gallery Original Theatrical Trailers Collectible booklet Technical Specifications: Re-mastered Digital Transfer, supervised by David Lynch, Widescreen 2.35:1, English 5.1 Surround, French Stereo Surround, Spanish Mono, English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese Subtitles
Choice Scene: That candy-colored clown they call the sandman…three minutes that revived the careers of both Dean Stockwell and Roy Orbison.
In the summer of 1986, if you asked any hip college student for their beer of choice, they would have to say "Heineken," to which the proper response was "Heineken? F*** that! Pabst! Blue Ribbon!" Nobody really knew who Dennis Hopper had been before Blue Velvet, but his menacing and charismatic Frank Booth had seeped into the consciousness of the cool.
Since then, many storytellers have revisited the territory laid out by David Lynch in this quintessentially Lynchian film, but none have done it nearly as well. Even Lynch seemed to be slumming in his attempts until last year's Mulholland Drive.
Blue Velvet tells the story of Jeffrey Beaumont (Kyle McLachlan), called home from college after his father has a heart attack. After discovering a severed ear in a field, Jeffrey gets pulled into a side of life in his hometown that he never knew existed. With his burgeoning sweetheart Sandy (Laura Dern), daughter of a police detective, Jeffrey investigates the ear, becoming entangled with lounge singer Dorothy Vallens (Isabella Rossellini) and her strange relationship with the dangerous Frank Booth (Hopper).
In many ways, the film defies easy description. Appropriate for an artist like Lynch, the small town is painted in overbright, too perfect hues, slapped over its dark underbelly. Frank's abuse of Dorothy (at least upon first release) shocked, stunned, horrified and amused audiences. And Dean Stockwell's brief appearance as the enigmatic Ben just needs to be seen to be believed. The film is more accessible than Lynch's debut Eraserhead, but in many ways it's far more disturbing, as so much of its dream/nightmare logic has been cleverly disguised as a Hardy Boys mystery gone horribly, horribly wrong.
Lynch himself oversaw the transfer of the print to this release, and it's a marked improvement over an earlier DVD version. Lovingly photographed, the film's rich color pops on the screen. The sound balances fairly well, though perhaps overplays the ominous hum that Lynch uses to unsettle the audience. It should be something that affects on a less conscious level, but is way too obvious here.
What the disc lacks in extra features, it makes up in quality. Lynch disdains commentary, so the film itself has no extra track. (He has a point; his films in particular beg discussion, not lecture.) But MGM has put together a comprehensive documentary, Mysteries of Love, which combines a rare 1987 Lynch interview with new interviews of the cast and crew. Lynch clearly inspires loyalty and affection, and working on the film changed a lot of the talents' path. (Hopper was on a comeback trail already, having also shot Hoosiers around the same time, but Blue Velvet gave him real viability as an actor.) The documentary provides insight into just how fragile a creature the film was, and just how amazing it is that Lynch got to make it.
Technically, there are no deleted scenes left. Lynch had a four-hour cut of the film originally, and lopped it down to two hours. Everything lost got swept up on the cutting room floor and literally thrown away. For this disc, MGM has gathered together publicity shots and tried to make some narrative sense of them. The effect is a little hallucinatory, but they were right; you do get a sense of the scenes without any dialogue. It's a testament to Lynch's visual power.
My favorite extra is the inclusion of Siskel & Ebert's review. You want a taste of the controversy this movie engendered? Here it is, from a time when that two thumbs up thing really meant something.
Blue Velvet stands out as a classic film, a must-have for a fan's collection. With the cooperation of the filmmaker, MGM has put out a DVD worth the investment.
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